ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, September 24, 1996 TAG: 9609240026
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: What's On Your Mind?
SOURCE: RAY REED
Q: Why don't school buses have seat belts?
R.M.Y., Fincastle
A: Lots of parents, and some students, would like to have seat belts on school buses. The nation's experts just can't agree that seat belts are justifiable.
Consider this comment on bus belts: "They don't work. They cause more problems in a school bus than they solve.
"Kids vandalize them, and they hurt each other with them."
The source of that remark was Philip Recht, deputy administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speaking at a seminar in Kansas City a couple of weeks ago. He said seat backs that are padded on both sides work better than belts.
Recht's agency says an average of 42 school-age children die in bus-related traffic crashes each year - 11 bus occupants and 31 pedestrians.
If nothing else, these statistics prove the most dangerous part of a bus ride occurs when a child is getting on or off the vehicle.
The bottom-line answer to why buses don't have belts is this: If all buses had lap belts, one life might be saved and several dozen injuries avoided each year. The cost of equipping buses with belts would be $40 million a year.
Those findings came from a committee of transportation safety experts organized by the National Research Council in 1988.
"The study committee concludes that the overall potential benefit of requiring seat belts in large school buses is insufficient to justify a federal standard mandating installation," a majority of the group concluded. A minority encouraged states to require the belts anyway.
People who advocate seat belts say they're worth all the problems if one life is saved. Often, the most eloquent of these advocates are physicians who treat accident victims.
New York state has seat belts on its buses but doesn't make people buckle up. One state has gone further: New Jersey requires that occupants use seat belts on buses built since 1994.
Public response, especially from parents, has been favorable, says Paul Loriquet of the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety.
Loriquet cited a head-on crash in Princeton where police officers were amazed there were no injuries among the pupils, all buckled up on a class trip to a museum.
Some New Jersey school systems monitor use of the belts by installing video cameras or by having older students check to see if everyone's belt is fastened. Other systems leave monitoring to the driver.
If a pupil is seen standing up and the matter is followed up, the parent gets a reminder that riding a bus is a privilege that can be revoked, Loriquet said.
Cost isn't blocking other safety innovations, including one that automatically stops a bus if anything is near its wheels.
Other optional equipment may include two escape hatches on top of a bus and two more on each side, a backing alarm, exterior mirrors with defrosters and a fuel tank in a crash-proof cage. One final thought: The research group found that school buses are remarkably safe. Cars have four times more occupant fatalities per mile driven, even though buses carry more passengers.
Got a question about something that might affect other people, too? Something you've come across and wondered about? Call us at 981-3118. Or, e-mail RayR@Roanoke.Infi.Net. Maybe we can find the answer.
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